


Fear As Dense As Dragon Scales

by FictionPenned



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, The Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini
Genre: Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27476719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: After a long moment, Murtagh clears his throat. “Would you like to meet him?”Surprise alights upon Sansa’s face, widening her eyes and loosening the set of her mouth with untempered amazement. “The hatchling?”A small measure of amusement slinks back into Murtagh’s tone, reminding Sansa of his usual disposition as he cocks his head to one side and replies, “Who else?”Written for Fic In A Box 2020
Relationships: Sansa Stark/Murtagh Morzansson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Fear As Dense As Dragon Scales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amitye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amitye/gifts).



Sansa stares at the blank stone of the wall before her, a slow trickle of blood tracing a line from the cut on her cheek down to her chin. When the wound was initially dealt, it stung, but the pain has since reduced to an unforgiving, creeping sense of _numbness_. To choose to feel would be to find herself mired in her own misery, and her heart could not bear such a blow. She is stronger than she once was, but one would have to be forged entirely of steel to survive a captivity such as this in a court known mostly for its cruelty. She is not made of steel, but she can pretend as if she is. She wills her heart to harden, her skin to toughen, her mind to settle.

The pretending is almost the same as bravery, she suspects, though she knows that her sister would mock the idea if she was here. For a moment, Sansa longs to hear the irritating words, spoken in an equally irritating tone, but she reminds herself that it is a good thing Arya _isn’t_ here. She would not have survived a day in King Galbatorix’s court. As little sisters are wont to do, Arya left the womb without an ounce of patience in her body. She would not have stomached the games, the courtesy, the tense dinners. Sansa, however, has learned to cope as best she can with the tools that a noble lady is provided. She does not have a sword with which to protect herself, but she has her wits, her tongue, and her etiquette.

She also has an _ally_.

A knock sounds at the door, and a small, courteous smile situates itself upon her lips. She smooths her skirts with gently splayed fingers, arrays herself upon the edge of the bed carefully, so as to keep the still-bleeding side of her face out of the visitor’s direct line of sight. “Come in,” Sansa says, voice clipped. Though she doesn’t know who might be stopping by her rooms at this hour, she desperately hopes that it is her only friend. She does not think that she has the stamina to lend her tongue to another lengthy conversation built upon lies and acquiescence. Not while her cheek is split open, blood drips steadily upon her collar, and she feels so hollow that she might as well not exist at all.

The door opens with a quiet creak of poorly oiled hinges and a young raven-haired man steps over the threshold and carefully closes the door behind him. “Are you well? I just heard —“

Their eyes meet and he lapses into quick silence, no doubt noting both the peculiar manner in which Sansa is seated and the slightly pained expression upon her face.

Sansa swallows once. An ashamed blush rises to her face as she averts her eyes, and her heart beats so loudly that she suspects that even from across the room, Murtagh can hear it. Though he is not her enemy — proving that time and time again through conversation and solidarity and acts of rebellion so tiny as to be unnoticeable by anyone else — she has a certain image to maintain. She is a lady, after all, and ladies do not faint or cry or give way beneath the pressures of existence. They smile and remain as poised as possible, no matter what blows may come their way. A lady’s courtesy is both her weapon and her armor, and if she were to shed it, even in private, she fears that Murtagh would think less of her, that she would somehow be less worthy of both his support and his company. “It is nothing, sir.”

A single drop of blood traces the curve from her cheek to her chin, and after a moment’s pause, it splashes onto the back of her folded hands, sending small rays out in every direction. It looks very much like the first crack in a vase that is on the verge of breaking, and as if to dispel the possibility that she might shatter as easily as glass or porcelain, Sansa quickly moves to wipe it away, smearing it upon the underside of her skirt.

She is neither quick nor subtle enough to avoid Murtagh’s notice.

Or, perhaps, he had known already.

Despite the iron hold that Galbatorix holds over his court, there are a great number of tongues that are inclined towards wagging. News and rumors alike move like lightning through these dark and hallowed halls, with little regard for whether or not the gossip will circle back to its subject.

Murtagh steps forward. He does not ask for an invitation before sitting beside her upon her bed, but then again, he does not need one. They have sat like this for many hours on end, sharing stories of family and sadness and the seemingly endless suffocation of captivity. Proximity is familiar territory, as is the buzzing warmth that seems to pass between them every time their eyes meet or their quiet breaths mix and mingle in the air between them.

Murtagh lowers his eyes as he pulls the glove from his right hand, tugging one finger free at a time, purposeful and meticulous, but when his bare touch curls beneath Sansa’s chin and maneuvers the injured side of her face towards the light, his hand is trembling. Fear and anxiety are common specters that rattle their bones and wrack their bodies. Galbatorix and his people are adept at exploiting one’s natural reticences and wielding them as weapons, but this feels different.

A whispered curse slips through Murtagh’s gritted teeth as his eyes finally fall upon the still-bleeding gash. “Is he sending anyone to heal you?”

Sansa weighs a great number of answers upon the tip of her tongue, rolling them around in her mouth and the front of her mind as she attempts to settle on the most appropriate option. “If so, he failed to mention it.” It is as honest as she can be while retaining her commitment to measured diplomacy. They may be in her private rooms and situated behind closed doors, but the King and his sorcerers have a habit of digging through minds and searching through memories, and even the slightest hint of distasteful dialogue might be twisted into declarations of treason.

Treason is what took her father’s life in the end, after all. Sansa will not allow other people to put improper words into her mouth and stitch that same label into her clothes. The Stark line will not die at her hands, nonetheless by something as seemingly trivial as an act of indiscretion.

Something unreadable rolls across Murtagh’s gaze, as surely as a frost-bitten fog descending upon a placid lake. “He is cruel.”

Sansa does not dare voice a reply, but the tentative swipe of a tongue across dry lips is answer enough.

No one in this realm would dare to describe its King as a kind man. At best, he could be known as both decisive and determined, utterly committed to power and the pursuit of it. At worst, he is capacious and brutal and wicked beyond belief.

Murtagh stands without warning, disturbing the balance of the mattress and setting loose a flutter of panic within the confines of Sansa’s ribcage. “What are you doing?” Though she was not quick with a reply to his thoughts, her question strikes like a snap of lightning. It is, perhaps, a touch harsh, but she has learned that people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt or her naïve and thoughtless trust.

He could be doing anything, and she has a vested interest in knowing what it is.

“Wetting a cloth in your washbasin,” Murtagh replies. His tone is so unmoved and unaffected by Sansa’s fear that the calm almostimmediately sets her heart at rest.

Ashamed of her impulsive words and behavior, Sansa looks down at her lap, fingers curling as she presses her thumb against the soft center of her palm. “I spoke rudely. Do forgive me.”

She glances up for long enough to catch the vague bemusement that passes across her friend’s face.

“There is no need. I hear far harsher things than that, and for far worse reasons.” As promised, Murtagh sinks a cloth into the cool, clear water of the washbasin and wrings out the excess before striding back across the room and descending into his previously vacated space at her side.

Once again, his careful fingers find his chin as the cloth begins to dab at the open wound, clearing it of blood and other debris. Sansa winces at the first instance of contact, pulling air through her tightly gritted teeth with a pained hiss, but she quickly sinks her back teeth into her tongue, holding any and all further complaints decidedly at bay.

“If I had magic, this could be gone in a moment,” Murtagh comments idly, eyes flitting to hers for only a moment before roaming back to the blood on her cheek.

“If you had magic, the King would make you swear an oath forbidding the use of it outside of his permission.”

A shrug whispers across Murtagh’s shoulders, decidedly at odds with the frown that digs deep trenches in the furrows of his forehead and the lines at the corners of his mouth. “There is a loophole to every oath.”

“And a way to close them all, should they be discovered. It is far better to do nothing at all and retain some measure of thought and freedom than to have the last vestiges of yourself ripped from your grasp.” It is, perhaps, a darker thought than any that ought to be written upon the lips of a proper lady, but to Sansa, it reflects an important truth. “Besides,” she adds with a small, forced smile, “I will hardly die from something as simple as a cut. It is unlikely to even scar.”

“Still,” Murtagh says, voice perilously low as he leans in closer. The warmth of his breath washes across Sansa’s skin as he speaks, and a shiver races from the top of her head to the very tip of her toes. “You should not be placed in a position where you must worry about whether or not a blow will scar. You do not venture into battle with a blade in your hands and death in your eyes.”

This time Sansa’s smile, small though it is, is entirely genuine. “No, but one can walk through the gardens and wander the halls while bearing thoughts of death.” 

Indeed, she has entertained several wild fantasies of the castle walls being breached, of Galbatorix somehow meeting his end at the claws of the Varden’s newfound dragon or the magic of her rider. It will likely be some time before either the dragon or her rider is strong enough to battle with the King and emerge victorious, but Sansa is patient. She is willing to sit and wait and desperately hope that Galbatorix is unable to find Riders for any of his remaining eggs.

It is not the most foolish of hopes. He has been unsuccessful for decades; the hatchlings need only hold out for a little longer.

Staring into Murtagh’s face, she can read much the same thought in his eyes as their gazes meet.

Not only do they share their fears, they share their hopes.

Slowly, the shaking hand bearing the cloth falls away from Sansa’s bleeding cheek. He seems to have entirely forgotten how to breathe, how to move, how to re-don the casual disdain that he wears as armor.

Sansa leans forward, placing her palm on the side of his neck. His pulse runs beneath the pads of her fingers. Tendons tighten as tense anticipation fills his veins. Muscles rise and fall as a swallow pulses in his throat. There is a temptation upon her lips, a desire squeezing her heart betwixt its sharpened claws, a thought so primal and so deep that it cannot be shaken away, but her many lessons in love and etiquette and diplomacy cause her hesitate. 

It would not be ladylike to initiate a kiss with a man to whom she is neither married betrothed.

Her touch falls away as she returns her hand to its place in her lap.

Disappointment floods across Murtagh’s face as he stands and rubs a hand over first his eyes and then his jaw. “Perhaps I should go. The bleeding has stopped. I’m no longer useful here.” With a flick of his wrist, the damp cloth takes up position on a wooden chair in the corner of her room where Sansa has a habit of piling things that are in need of laundering.

Sansa inhales sharply through her nose, ready to mount a protest, but her will shatters beneath the soft vulnerability that glimmers at the corners of Murtagh’s eyes.

Instead, she voices only one last note of gratitude before they part ways for the night.

Sansa does not see Murtagh for a week.

They do not cross paths in the gardens. There are no locked eyes across a crowded dining hall. There are no brushes in tight, spiraling staircases or notes passed in secret.

She thinks, perhaps, that he might be avoiding her.

It is a horrid thought, to think that she might have succeeded in frightening away her only friend, but she does her best to supplant it with more reasonable ideas. He may be hurt. He may be spending several nights in the dungeons. He may be being subjected to one of the horrible sessions in which Galbatorix commits himself to the discovery of a person’s true name so that he might have an infallible method of control over them and their actions.

Even the vague memory of those sessions is strong and vile enough to send a shudder down Sansa’s spine. She has been subjected to them on more than one occasion, and no doubt, she will be forced to suffer through them again soon enough.

Galbatorix does not yet have her name, a fact that he finds completely and utterly infuriating.

To Sansa, however, it is a balm of relief.

She may not be free, but she retains a certain measure of freedom.

It is the best that one can hope for, given her situation, and she hopes that Murtagh has been able to retain his.

She keeps her ears pricked whenever she finds herself in the company of others, hoping that someone will let slip an important piece of gossip, something that offers her some faint reassurance that Murtagh is alive and well and does not hate her, but there are no mentions of him.

She does not know whether that is cause for grief or celebration, but she does her best to continue about her days as normal and prevent her mind from jumping to untoward conclusions. It is a terribly difficult demand to make of herself, but she applies every ounce of her will to ensuring its success, and in a way, it becomes its own distraction. So much so, in fact, that she does not notice the corresponding absence of the King. It takes a set of flippant words spoken by one of her peers over supper for her eyes to finally settle upon the center seat at the highest table. It is, indeed, empty, and according to the girl, it has been empty for many days now.

When Sansa presses for more information, she is met with little more than a shrug. It would seem that there is no news regarding where he might be, but given that there is war waging in the south, it is not unreasonable to assume that he may be becoming increasingly involved.

Sansa fears the worst.

She fears that one of the two remaining eggs has hatched, and that Murtagh has been pressed into following in his dreadful father’s footsteps.

Unfortunately, it is not long before her worst fear is confirmed to be true.

The next time Murtagh knocks and the door to Sansa’s rooms is eased open, it seems as though her friend has not slept in days. His face is so pale that he might be mistaken for a ghost, his shoulders sag beneath an imaginary weight, and there is a haunted glaze situated deep in her arms.

“ _Oh_!” Sansa exclaims, jumping to her feet in a manner that is far from ladylike. “I was terribly worried that something must have happened to you! I have been fretting for days. It did not help that the King disappeared and, like a fool, I assumed that the two things must be related and —“

Wordlessly, Murtagh holds out a hand and rotates his palm upwards, and Sansa is acutely aware of the exact moment in which both her heart and her hope shatter into a thousand pieces.

A silvery sheen catches the flickering light of the candles in her room — as bright and certain as the eye of the full moon that hangs low in the western sky on this very night. That kind of mark is the stuff of songs and legends, and though the King, as a Rider himself, must bear one, she has never laid eyes upon it in person. Perhaps it is mere fancy — the misguided thoughts of a hopeless romantic — but Sansa thinks that she can sense the magic radiating from it in waves, an aura that touches only those precious few who have been chosen by a dragon.

For the first time in Sansa’s life, words and courtesy entirely fail her. There ought to be something proper to say, some reassurance to offer, but it lies beyond her breadth of knowledge.

Her eyes — as bright and blue as the sea itself — flick up towards his face, searching for help, but Murtagh has fixed his stare firmly upon the ceiling. A knot in his jaw and a telltale shimmer at the corners of his eyes reveal the amount of effort required to hold his emotions at bay. She cannot begin to imagine what he might be feeling — be it resentment or rage or fear or a measure of tainted happiness — and she does not dare to guess, but she values the fact that he has come to her to share this information, rather than waiting for it to filter through the gossiping tongues of the court.

“Did he —“ Sansa starts, but a stutter of doubt cuts her short and she circles back to a clipped, two word question. “Your name?”

A visible shiver rips through Murtagh, and though that is answer enough to her question, he lends his tongue to it anyway. “He would not have let me before the eggs with that degree of insurance in place.”

Sansa shakes her head, sending ripples of movement passing down the length of her auburn hair. “I am so terribly sorry, Murtagh.”

For the first time in the conversation, Murtagh’s eyes roam away from the comforting nothingness of the ceiling and seek out Sansa’s own. “What for? You had nothing to do with it. It was bound to happen eventually.”

“That does not make it a pleasant fate to suffer.”

A sigh trickles from Murtagh’s nostrils as his eyes roam away again — pained and unfocused. “No, it doesn’t.”

A lengthy silence settles between them. It is awkward and uncomfortable, and desperate to provide some sort of tangible help, Sansa steps forward and takes Murtagh’s newly marked hand between both of her own, squeezing it gently. His skin is far more calloused than her own — speaking to days spent with reins and blades and bows in his hands — but it is warm and lovely and familiar.

Sansa is so focused on their entwined hands that she does not see Murtagh’s eyes roam back to her, or the soft, unspoken understanding that sweeps across her entire body.

After a long moment, Murtagh clears his throat. “Would you like to meet him?”

Surprise alights upon Sansa’s face, widening her eyes and loosening the set of her mouth with untempered amazement. “The hatchling?”

A small measure of amusement slinks back into Murtagh’s tone, reminding Sansa of his usual disposition as he cocks his head to one side and replies, “Who else?”

The hatchling is small and unsteady and as bright red as the blood that Murtagh had wiped from her wound. Sansa has never spent much time around animals of any sort, nonetheless something as rare as a dragon, and almost unconsciously, she finds herself hanging back by the door, fingers wrapping around its wooden frame as if it might offer her a measure of courage that she lacks.

Murtagh glances over his shoulder at Sansa for a moment, alert gaze no doubt noticing her discomfort, and he turns away for a moment, bending down and offering the hatchling a place on his arm. The dragon nudges its small head against his hand as it tries to figure out the best way to mount its new perch, and then, with a flap of wings and a scrabbling of tiny claws, it throws itself at Murtagh sleeve and wraps its toes tightly around the fabric.

Sansa releases a laugh of surprised delight, and almost immediately clasps her hand over her mouth as if she might be able to return the indignity to the place from which it originated.

Murtagh, however, does not judge her. Indeed, he almost seems relieved at the inelegant outburst.

With one hand hovering near the dragon’s side to ensure that it does not tumble back to the floor, Murtagh slowly straightens. Despite a slight wobble, the hatchling manages to keep its hold. Steady steps carry the unlikely pair across the room before they come to rest a respectful distance away from Sansa.

“Does he have a name?” Sansa asks curiously as she takes a careful step forward, reaching a gentle hand towards the dragon. The creature is surprisingly soft, and there is a tiny, almost unnoticeable grumble vibrates beneath the pads of her fingers, much like the purring of the kitten that her younger sister Arya once smuggled into their room as a child. It is hard to imagine that something this small might one day grow into an animal the size of a castle, capable of razing entire battalions with a single fiery breath.

Murtagh shakes his head. The locks of his hair mix and flow with her own, forming a veil of red and black that falls between them and the rest of the world. Their foreheads almost touch as Sansa leans forward even more, running a careful finger down the arm of the hatchling’s wing. “No.”

Sansa tears her gaze away from the dragon, frowning slightly as she seeks out Murtagh’s eyes. “Why not?”

“I haven’t managed to find one he likes yet.”

“He speaks to you? Already?”

Murtagh nods. “A little bit. Mostly to tell me that I’m an idiot.”

A smile breaks across Sansa’s features as she once again turns her attention to the hatchling. “Can he speak to others?”

Murtagh hesitates. “You would have to learn how to control your mind, and he would have to want to talk to you, but I don’t see why he wouldn’t.”

Fear rises in the back of Sansa’s throat. “The King wouldn’t be able to tell if I learned how to open and close my mind to a dragon, would he?”

“I don’t know,” her friend answers honestly, running his tongue across his lips as he runs through the breadth of his knowledge. He feels as though he should know more about what it means to be a non-Rider in the company of dragons, given that he was both born to a Rider, in the captivity of a Galbatorix, and spent a great many weeks in the company of Eragon and Saphira, but he feels shamefully under-equipped. “I don’t suppose he’d pick up on it provided that you do not try to block him.”

Sansa nods. Her fingers continue to pet the dragon’s back in a steady rhythm, and he arches into her touch. She should not have thought of the King, nonetheless mentions him. Even when he is absent, he has a way of draping himself across a room like a stifling blanket — reminding all possible betrayers of the scope and depth of both his power and his cruelty.

A moment later, however, Murtagh lends himself to the only words strong enough to dispel Galbatorix’s shadow.

“Would you like to hold him?”

Sansa glances up in surprise, unable to muster much of a reply for a long moment, but eventually, she manages an enthusiastic nod. She never dreamed of being able to hold a dragon. For so long, thoughts of hatching eggs were draped in fear — even now, it is an omen of worse things to come — but there is some small measure of relief to be found that the chosen Rider is Murtagh. Though he may be used to horrible ends, it is comforting to know that he, himself, is a good person.

Though her hope is dimmer than it once was, it has not been altogether extinguished.

In a situation as dire as theirs, it is the best that they can hope for.

At Murtagh’s instruction, she moves onto his bed. His mattress is less forgiving than hers, a fact she notes almost immediately, and she wonders if the difference is a matter of preference or disregard or casual indifference. Perhaps one day she will ask, but today is not a day for allowing the mind to dwell upon something as trivial as the softness of one’s bed. It is a day for getting to be one of the very few people in this world who has ever held a dragon hatchling.

As Murtagh convinces the dragon to pass from its perch on his arm and onto her waiting lap, Sansa holds remarkably still. She is afraid not only of accidentally hurting it, but of frightening the poor thing. It must be quite terrible to spend an interminable age trapped within the confines of an egg, only to break free into a world ruled by an unforgiving tyrant.

She wonders if it knows how poor its timing is, or if it even cares.

According to the stories and the histories, dragons can live for centuries and grow to the size of mountains. Surely, to such a beast, Galbatorix and his reign must seem infinitesimal, especially if one has not yet heard of the possibilities held by a world freed from his grasp. Sansa is not old enough to have experienced a time before Galbatorix’s rule, but she is well-studied in her histories. She can recite songs and epic poems as easily as one might share an autobiography. As a child, she sought solace in those stories, dreamed of one day marrying a prince or a knight worth of being immortalized in such beautiful words. As an adult, however, the songs fill her with both longing and regret. She wishes that she focused more upon the world as it is, rather than the world that it was. Perhaps then, she might have been prepared for the suffering to which it has treated her.

The hatchling is hesitant and bumbling as it circles, trying to find a comfortable place to settle, and when it finally curls up and lies down with twin spirals of smoke rising from its nostrils, Sansa releases a pent-up breath.

“He’s like a rose,” she says as she runs a touch over one of his clawed feet. “Bright red and beautiful but full of thorns and teeth and claws.”

Murtagh palms the back of his neck as he stands over them, his eyes fixed firmly upon the spot of crimson in Sansa’s lap. “Thorn,” he says thoughtfully, turning the word over on his tongue, tasting it, evaluating its texture. “I wonder if that’s a name he’ll like.”

Sansa merely shrugs. She does not presumes to speak on behalf of a dragon, even a sleeping, newly hatched one.

Days blur into weeks, and weeks blur into months. Slowly and steadily, the green on the trees gives way beneath the rampage of autumn. The chilly air carries with it the promise of both change and snow, and the gossip turns towards discussions of war. Against all expectations, the Varden has moved steadily. Their numbers are great, and their forces are strong. The blue dragon and her Rider have not been spotted for some time, but that does not mean that they have broken their alliance with the rebels. It is far more likely that they are lying in wait somewhere, training and waiting for the dragon to become large enough to challenge Galbatorix.

They do not yet know about Thorn, who has grown exponentially since his hatching. He is large enough to carry a Rider, large enough that one day, Sansa leaned out of a tower window, wind whipping her hair around her face, and spotted Murtagh and Thorn in the distance, practicing battle maneuvers over and over again until they are able to run them perfectly every time.

Sansa cannot help think about how tempting it must be for them to run — to disappear into the sky and vanish into the distant horizon — but she also knows that both dragon and Rider are held captive through a complex series of oaths and the binding of their true names, and that presents any real, lasting escape.

She has sat cross-legged with Murtagh on the floor on many occasions, with her ear bent close to his lips as he whispered the many clauses of his servitude. Surely, there is a way by which he might be able to thread the needle and stage his own escape, but it is complicated, and doing so places not only Murtagh’s life, but Thorn’s, at risk. Those stakes lend themselves to hesitation and worry, and Sansa does not blame him. In her mind, it is safer to bide his time and wait patiently for the perfect opportunity to arise, rather than to behave foolishly and impulsively and doom those he loves.

That is exactly what Sansa has been doing, after all. Waiting, surviving, hoping that her cooperation will save whatever other members of the Stark family still manage to cling to life somewhere beyond the limited scope of her awareness.

Once the sun begins to set, the distant dragon drifts steadily closer. Silhouetted against the swirling pink background of the sky, he seems deadly in a way that Sansa has never been able to appreciate before. In her mind, he will always be the clumsy hatchling that struggled to keep ahold of Murtagh’s arm on that first night, the baby that curled up in her lap to nap.

Every wingbeat hits like thunder, compressing the evening air and forcing Sansa to grasp tightly onto the window frame in order to maintain her balance and keep from being forced back down the stairs.

Even from the distance between the castle itself and the walls that mark the boundaries of Thorn’s permitted airspace, the dragon’s eyes are large and penetrating and teeming with wisdom to which Sansa will never be privy. The dragon’s mind presses up against her own as he speaks directly to her.

 _We are improving_ , he declares proudly, in a voice akin to the raking of hot coals in a dying fire.

Though it is rude to initiate conversation with a dragon, it is perfectly acceptable to engage with them after they have deigned to speak to you.

 _I can tell. You’ve gotten so big_. 

Thorn shakes his head in delight as he finally lands, sending dust and smoke into the air in a dense, grey cloud.

 _I could carry two people now, Little Bird_.

Sadness twines around her heart like an invading weed reaching towards the sun at the expense of all nearby trees. It is not the first time that Thorn and Murtagh have issued the invitation, but her own oaths keep her to the grounds of the castle. She is not permitted to so much as step foot outside of the gates voluntarily, nonetheless straddle the back of a dragon and allow herself to be lifted into the endless expanse of the sky.

 _I can’t. You know that_.

An impression of endless, drowning rain enters her mind — images of sodden rain and stifling mud and the vague sense of abandonment.

 _I’m sorry. There are things you cannot do and things I cannot do, and this is something I cannot do_.

There is a distant huff of dissatisfaction, and Sansa has a feeling that this will not be the last time they have this conversation.

Perhaps one day she will be able to say yes.

Perhaps one day there will be no threats hanging over their heads, no oaths, no fear, and they will be able to take to the skies and never look back.

It is a nice thought to have, if an unlikely one.

The bigger Thorn gets, the less likely it is that the Varden’s insurrection will be able to prove successful.

If Galbatorix wins this war, Sansa may be stuck here forever, feet tied to the ground and heart tied to a Rider and a dragon almost entirely deprived of autonomy.

For most of Sansa’s life, war has been a distant, largely abstract concept, the shape of an idea that does not seem entirely real. Aside from the King, she knows of no one who has entered battle and survived. Victories and losses have been resigned to the stanzas of poetry and the pages of history, catalogued in incomprehensible numbers and exaggerated stories of villainy and heroics alike. She never imagined that she might have to say goodbye to someone who she loves as he leaves for battle, never thought that she might have to send up prayers of protection to the gods of elves and dwarves and wayward humans, desperately hoping that someone, _somewhere_ might hear them and respond.

Murtagh’s hands are on her shoulders — clad in armored gloves so thick that she can barely feel the flesh and bone beneath. He feels almost like a different person — the ghost of a larger, harder, crueler man — but when she looks into his eyes, she can still see the wounded soul that lurks beneath. He is a puppet, being used and wielded by a man who does not care about his wants and needs and desires.

“I am afraid for you,” she says quietly, keeping her gaze trained on Murtagh’s face and trying to forget the rest of him.

Murtagh swallows. “Thorn will keep me safe, and my spoiled, idiot brother will not have the nerve to kill me.”

“He killed a Shade.”

“The Shade deserved it.”

“What if he thinks you deserve it?” Sansa asks. She bows her head and leans forward, fidgeting with the beveled edge of his breastplate. The metal is cold and unforgiving beneath her fingers — not all that different from the edge of a blade. She has never given much thought to the many unprotected gaps in a man’s armor, the countless ways that he might die should luck and skill choose to abandon him in the heat of battle.

“He won’t.” There is a pause as Murtagh slips his fingers beneath her chin, guiding her eyes back towards his in much the same manner as he had on that night when he cleaned the wound on her face. In the intervening time, that cut has faded to a thin white scar upon her cheek. It is barely noticeable unless you know where it is or what to look for. Murtagh, however, does. He runs the pad of his thumb across it, marking its path through the faint, star-flecked field of her freckles.

“He might. When I was a child, there were many days when I thought Arya looked fit to stab me through the heart just to get me out of the way, and we were hardly on opposite sides of a war.”

There is a flicker of movement across the set of Murtagh’s face — there and gone in an instant, long before Sansa has a chance to read it. He takes a step back, touch falling away from her face as he pulls a finely crafted dagger from his belt and presses the hilt into her hands.

A question situates itself in the set of her lips and the lift of her brow. She has never wielded anything more threatening than a kitchen knife, anything more deadly than a sewing needle. She knows no more about brandishing a dagger than she does about using magic. She is not a killer; she is a survivor. “I — I can’t.”

She takes a step forward and attempts to return the dagger to its owner, but Murtagh raises his hands in the air and refuses to accept it.

“I do not know how this will play out,” he says carefully, turning his eyes towards the rising sun. “I want you to be able to protect yourself if things begin to go awry. If Thorn and I fall, if the Varden cross the country and breach these walls, they may not discriminate between friend and foe.” His tongue ventures out to wet his lips as he straddles a more dangerous thought. “And there are worse things Galbatorix can do than strike you across the face. If you are given the opportunity, do not hesitate to sink a blade into his heart.”

The bitter taste of bile rises up her throat and sinks into the back of her tongue. “I need you to come back. You can’t die in your first battle. It wouldn’t be fair. I won’t let it happen.”

Her stubborn rage is almost childish in its expression, but her failings make it no less impactful.

She can see Murtagh blinking tears from his eyes, see the beginnings of a thought or a reassurance or a confession begin to scribe themselves across his lips. “Sansa, I —“

A horn sounds in the middle distance.

Both Sansa and Murtagh flinch, jumping towards each other in an ungraceful tangle of leg and limb.

In the end, he only says, “Be safe. Please.”

Sansa nods, sinking her teeth into the inside of her cheek as she bites back tears and curses and sobs. “Come back. I need you.”

Murtagh nods and begins his walk towards the gates.

“Murtagh!” she calls after him.

He pauses, and turns to look over his shoulder, a hint of amusement lurking at the corners of his mouth. “Yes?”

“Tell Thorn he’s brilliant.”

There is a sigh and a smile, and a quiet “I will” crosses the space between them before Murtagh resumes his walk towards bloodshed and battle and unbelievable brutality.

Sansa does not see Murtagh in the first days following his return.

He failed in his assigned task to capture Eragon and his dragon and return them here, and Galbatorix is full of rage and fury and anger. Sansa does not doubt that Murtagh is being treated not only to punishment, but to a series of measures designed to ensure that he does not fail a second time.

Both are equally horrifying.

It is only when she can no longer stomach the isolation that she sneaks out to the field that Thorn inhabits. The dragon is curled into a small hill of scales and leathery wings, and he opens a single eye at her approach. She curtsies politely to him, and he snorts his amusement.

_Hello, Little Bird._

_Hello_ , she says, offering him a small smile as he draws a step closer. His wary eye follows her all the way, even as she rests her palm upon the place behind one of his spikes that he likes to have scratched.

_What brings you here?_

_I was looking for your Rider._

_He is in his rooms, would you like me to call him?_

Sansa chews on her bottom lip, caught between the selfishness of wanting to see her friend and the selflessness of allowing him to sleep. In the end, she is indecisive. _Would he very much mind?_

The great eye, bright and pure as an ember, rolls towards the sky. _He never minds_.

Sansa and Murtagh meet beneath the gentle curve of Thorn’s wing, thrust between them and the rest of the world, offering them a degree of privacy previously unheard of in Galbatorix’s court. The light that seeps through the leathery membrane is tinted red. It skims the shining locks of Murtagh’s hair, gilds the sharp bones of his face, shines in the depth of his eyes like an untamed fire.

Words seem to lurk beyond their reach. There is only relief and fondness and the touch of hands and lips in the shadows.

“I did it on purpose,” Murtagh mumbles into the curve of Sansa’s shoulder, voice muffled by the soft velvet of her gown.

There is a hesitant pause, her eyes meeting his as she attempts to parse both meaning and context. “Pardon?”

“Eragon and Saphira. I let them go.” There is a sharp inhale through his nose, a readjustment of the hand at her back as fingers form fearful claws. “ _We_ let them go.”

Sansa’s beating heart picks up speed as worry fills her lungs — drowning her with every breath. “Does he know?” _He_ being, of course, the King, a man quick with the sword and even quicker with judgement. She cannot imagine that he would allow such an affront to pass unpunished, and she cannot even begin to imagine what horrors would face someone who committed treason of such high magnitude.

If Murtagh was not one of the last Riders in existence, he would have surely been executed.

Murtagh shakes his head. “No. He may suspect, but he is not certain. I hid the thought from him with another, and he has not yet managed to uncover the truth.”

“Will he?”

A small shrug lifts Murtagh’s shoulders.

Sansa frowns. “If you ever require an alibi, I will vouch for you. The word of a political prisoner means little to him, but as long as I have a voice, I will speak for you.”

The final word is lost in a kiss — filled with love and gentle gratitude — and the voice of a dragon brushes up against the edges of her mind.

 _Thank you_.

The war is slow to pass and slower to end.

It is only when Galbatorix is slain that Sansa feels the long-held weight of captivity lift from her shoulders. For the first time since she was a young child, she is free to go where she pleases, free to say what she likes, free to take to the sky and never look back.

Thorn once again poses the familiar invitation. He and Murtagh are being kept under tight supervision, scarcely aware to venture out of Saphira’s sight, but the older dragon senses Sansa’s excitement, Thorn’s long-harbored promise, and allows them to go.

Murtagh helps her into the saddle and takes his place behind her, their bodies so tightly pressed together that she can feel his heart beating against her back. He tightens the straps, tells her where to hold tight, reassures her that Thorn will catch her if she falls.

She is unafraid.

She trusts both the dragon and his Rider more than words can say.

As Thorn beats his wings and takes to the sky, she feels her heart enter her throat and an unladylike shriek vacate her lungs. She has run as fast as her legs can carry her, as leaned out the highest window of the highest tower and felt the wind on her face, has felt the moment of weightlessness between standing and falling, but nothing even comes close to the sensation of flying.

She feels Murtagh’s chuckle against the delicate skin of her ear, feels his hands tighten on her own, feels her soul leave her body.

The air is thin and cold, and she is breathless as she stares down at the sprawling land below.

Where once her world was an unforgiving stone wall and constant fear, it is now full of freedom and happiness and fierce, wonderful love.

 _Hold on_ , the dragon says to them both.

Sansa tightens the trip of her legs on his sides and braces herself for whatever may come.

Thorn folds his wings, and together, they fall through the clouds, rocketing towards the ground below.

Though she feels as though she ought to fear the eventuality of impact, worry that something will go wrong, such emotions seem to lurk far beyond her reach, now.

Thorn and Murtagh will catch her. She knows that they will.

In the years to come, they help each other heal.

They seek out the last remaining members of Sansa’s scattered family, finding her half-brother in the distant north and her sister disguised among the people of Gilead, traveling alongside a fearsome fellow known as The Hound. Murtagh, too, begins to repair his relationship with his lost family. He and Eragon grow steadily closer, and begin to forgive the pain and the uncontrollable circumstances that had driven them apart.

There are dinners served to people who wear only smiles, days spent in the idle company of dragons, joy and peace beyond belief.

Sansa begins to think that she could grow used to this, that she can settle into a life in this broad, messy family and find peace here. It is not the life she dreamed of when she filled her mind and heart with songs and fancy, but it is lovely all the same.

There is only one thing capable of disrupting it.

Only one thing big enough and strange enough to set their shared world on its end.

Sansa’s contact with the clutch of dragon eggs is merely incidental — a matter of chance rather than ceremony. Upon being enchanted, they were meant to be set aside until the plans for rebuilding the Riders are thoroughly implemented, until Eragon can best execute his plan to give people of all backgrounds an equal chance at selection.

Sansa did not plan to be one of them.

She is quite content to be betrothed to a Rider and not be a Rider herself, but a silvery grey egg rocks back and forth as soon as her fingers brush its jewel-like surface. Cracks spiral across it so quickly that she is hardly able to comprehend the development before a small, silver hatchling tumbles into her hands.

She is reminded of that long ago evening when she stole away to Murtagh’s rooms and first set eyes upon Thorn, of her thoughts and the name that came of it.

Her palm blazes with sudden pain, and a connection opens between herself and the hatchling, deeper and more poignant than anything that she has ever felt before.

At her side, Murtagh bursts into stunned laughter, a feat that he would have never been capable of during the days that they spent together in Galbatorix’s captivity, but that speaks to the freedom and levity that they have found in the wake of his defeat. “Eragon’s going to be _livid_.”

She is barely aware of the words, barely aware of anything beyond the bumbling dragon in her hands and the newfound passage in her mind.

“Aren’t you a pretty little lady?” she breathes, so quiet as to be nearly inaudible.

The dragon shifts, adjusts, raises its tiny wings as it seeks to free itself from the last of the egg's sticky membrane.

Sansa calls the dragon ‘Little Lady’ until the day when she first deigns to speak back to her, until the day when their minds meet and a purring, smug voice speaks directly into her mind. It feels to be, at once, completely new, yet as familiar as a voice that she has heard for her entire life.

 _I won’t be little for long, you know_.

_Would it suit you better to be known only as Lady, then?_

The dragon stretches, arching its back, scales glittering like many-faceted diamonds as they reflect the light of the sun.

 _Lady_ , she says, rolling the thought of the name around her mind, testing the fit of it beneath her skin. _I think it’s a good name._

Sansa smiles and sets a hand on the dragon’s back.

 _Then it is done_.


End file.
